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FAQ 2.5
OK, so I installed Freeciv. How do I play? Freeciv is a client/server system. To host a game, create computer players, etcetera, you must run the Freeciv server executable. To join a game as a player, you must run the Freeciv client executable and connect to a server. That's right, even when you're playing all by yourself, you have to start up two different executables. On Unix-like systems, the superuser (root) has special privileges, to be used only for system administration. Freeciv has a built-in check that prevents you from running it as root, but in some environments (eg. KDE) you may not see the error message. Make sure you run the Freeciv client and server, and your graphical desktop environment such as KDE itself, as a normal user, not root. See the relevant bug report for details. Once the client is started you can find information in its Help menu. To learn about server commands, type help on the server command line. See also the README supplied with Freeciv and the online manual on this site. If you use MS Windows, note that there are two Windows ports, one requiring cygwin and an X server, one native. For the Amiga version, see the instructions supplied with it. Once the game is running, extensive help for the client will be available in the Help menu. For the server commands and options, you have to resort to the command line interface. The /help command tells you how to find help on everything, Some visual front ends to control the server have been written, but none of them are distributed with Freeciv yet. The Freeciv contributed software directory may contain something to your liking. Detailed explanations of how to play Freeciv are also in the doc/README file distributed with the source code, and in the online manual available on this site. The manual covers both the client and the server, but it may not completely match the version you are playing. It is available in several languages and it can be downloaded for offline use. How can I change the way a Freeciv game is ended? A standard Freeciv game ends in year 2000, if no player manages to send a spaceship to Alpha Centauri sooner. If you want a longer or shorter game, you can change the endyear to anything between 4000 B.C. and 5000 A.D., by setting the endyear variable in the civserver, e.g. /set endyear 3000 You can end a running game at once, by setting endyear to the current year. Abuse can be avoided by saying /fix endyear before the game starts. To find out whether your civserver supports this, type /help on its command line. If you want to avoid the game ending by space race, you can type /set spacerace 0 How do I play against computer players? Start a server and connect to it with a client, as described above. On the server commandline, create computer players and start the game. For example: /set aifill 30 /start More details are in the README supplied with Freeciv and the online manual on this site. I've started a server but the client cannot find it! By default, your server will be available on host localhost (your own machine), port 5555; these are the default values your client uses when asking which game you want to connect to. So if you don't get a connection with these values, your server isn't running, or you used -p to start it on a different port, or your system's network configuration is broken. If you can't connect to any of the other games listed, e.g. those on pubserver, a firewall in your organisation/ISP is probably blocking the connection. I can play on my own server, but the metaserver doesn't seem to work. We have dedicated gameservers now (pubserver.freeciv.org and civ.alkar.net ), so if your metaserver button turns up an empty list, there's probably something wrong with your setup. First, check your Freeciv version. Freeciv 1.8.1 and below connect to the old metaserver; 1.9.0 and up use the new metaserver; if you're mixing versions, you may be getting the wrong list. If you can view the metaserver page with your WWW browser, and servers are listed, but the client's Metaserver button still fails to list them, you may be behind a non-transparent WWW proxy. See proxysettings for a detailed explanation. How do I change the metaserver info string? Use the metainfo command. In version 1.11.5 and up, it can be abbreviated to m. Am I using the latest version? Do I need to upgrade? The current stable Freeciv version is . For an overview of changes that went into this release, see the NEWS- file. The NEWS-#.#.# file is only updated for a new release; updates to CVS are listed in the freeciv-cvs archives (see mailinglists) and the actual code changes can be reviewed using our online source code browser. If you decide to upgrade, see the Main Page for source code, or the download page for contributed binaries. Not all precompiled binaries and ports have been updated to yet. If you can contribute, please do! Prepare a package and announce it to freeciv@freeciv.org. Clients and servers of different versions are often incompatible due to changes in the client/server protocol. You will see incompatibilities as a 'mismatching capabilities' error. For example, 1.14.0 and 1.14.1 are compatible; 1.13.0 and 1.14.0 are not. How do I use Freeciv under MS Windows 95/98/NT ? MS Windows support is relatively recent, and still experimental; Freeciv was originally written for Unix and the X window system, and is, in fact, extremely portable across Unix versions. One option is to install a Unix variant on your PC (such as Linux) and use that. For a list of supported Freeciv platforms, see the requirements and download pages. "cannot open display :0" The Freeciv client is unable to open a window on your local X display. Are you running an X server at all? Maybe you need to install and run one, or switch to a Freeciv that doesn't need X; see the previous question. HOME directory not set? The Freeciv client wants to write a configuration file named .civclientrc in your $HOME directory. On MS Windows, the $HOME variable is not always set. This can be done from the DOS prompt or a .bat file, for example: set home=C:\freeciv You can still play if this error message appears, but your client options won't be saved. How do I start the next game? A running civserver can only run a single game. Once the game has been started with the /start command, restarting is impossible. To start a new game, /quit the server and start a new one, then reconnect the client to it. On pubserver.freeciv.org we run additional software that restarts servers automatically once nobody is connected anymore. How do I restart a saved game? You can start civserver with the -f option, for example: civserver -f civgame1150.sav Or you can use the load command inside the server before starting the game. The server cannot save games! If the saveturns server variable is set, the server will attempt to save games in the directory you were in when you started it. Check its ownership, permissions, and disk space/quota for the partition it is on. Why are some of the menus in the Freeciv client disabled? In order to play Freeciv, you must start the Freeciv client and connect to a server. If you play by yourself, start the Freeciv server first, and connect the client to localhost. On the server command line, use the s command to start the game. The server will now load some configuration files that some of the menus depend on. How do I find out about the available units, improvements, terrain types, and technologies? There is extensive help on this in the Help menu, but only once the game has been started - this is because all of these things are configurable up to that point; see also 'Why are some of the menus disabled?' (Some work needs to be done to make this more intuitive.) Outside the Freeciv client, we have some online tutorials, but they are not entirely up to date. A graph of the (default) technology tree is available from David Pfitzner: see http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~dwp/freeciv . My diagonal arrow keys do not work on Solaris. Why exactly, I don't know, but you have to xmodmap a few keys around. From my .xinitrc: xmodmap -e 'keycode 27 = Up' \ -e 'keycode 31 = Left' \ -e 'keycode 34 = Down' \ -e 'keycode 35 = Right' \ -e 'keycode 76 = Up' \ -e 'keycode 98 = Left' \ -e 'keycode 120 = Down' \ -e 'keycode 100 = Right' See also the April, 2000 thread on this subject. Menu items do not work under KDE. Deactivate NumLock. Popup windows are sent to the back in KDE and pile up there. When opening popups in the Xaw client activated from other popups, eg. the Change production dialog in the city window, the popup that was previously open gets sent to the back. After a while the client slows down due to the number of open city windows, and they have to be closed one by one. The same thing may happen to report windows. This problem (PR#866; see maintainer's comment) is specific to the KDE window manager. If you know a way around it, please let us know. The client complains it can't read the .civclientrc file. This is harmless: the file will be created to store your client options, as soon as you save them; but it isn't supplied initially. My Freeciv client dumps core when I start it! Read on if you are using the Xaw client under certain Linux distributions or IRIX. In all likelihood, the problem is an enhanced version of the Xaw library, (Xaw3d, Xaw95,or neXtaw). A Freeciv binary compiled against the 'plain' Xaw library will segfault upon startup when used with these. Remedies: * Freeciv can be recompiled to use Xaw3d, if you have it: use configure --with-xaw3d. * make sure the libXaw.so Freeciv is seeing is an unenhanced version (by installing the appropriate package, pointing to the right version using environment variables, or whatever; details depend on platform) * if for some reason you can't, but there is a 'plain' libXaw.a somewhere: hunt through the Makefiles and change lines which contain "-lXaw" to "/usr/X11/lib/libXaw.a", or wherever libXaw.a is stored on your machine, then recompile (this was suggested by * install GTK+ (if not installed already), compile and use the GTK+ client instead of the Xaw one This problem used to be documented in the SuSE Linux support database. If your SEGV at startup is due to a different problem, please report it to the developers' bug reporting system, by sending it to bugs@freeciv.org. Freeciv fails to compile due to the Xaw libraries. As reported with Debian 2.1: > make2: Entering directory `/usr/src/freeciv/client' > Making all in gui-xaw > make3: Entering directory `/usr/src/freeciv/client/gui-xaw' > gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I../.. -I. -I./.. -I./../include > -I../../common -I../../intl -I/usr/X11R6/include -g -O2 -Wall -c > pixcomm.c > In file included from pixcomm.c:54: > pixcommp.h:54: X11/Xaw3d/CommandP.h: No such file or directory > make3: *** pixcomm.o Error 1 ... This is, again, an Xaw/Xaw3d confusion problem. In this particular case, the Debian xaw3dg package is not installed on the system. To select plain Xaw or Xaw3d explicitly, use: ./configure --with-xaw ... ./configure --with-xaw3d ... When compiling Freeciv from source, the no command cannot be found. This silly error message, and possibly others, may arise if you ./configure --with-included-gettext to use the multilingual support library (GNU gettext) distributed with Freeciv, but change your mind later. The problem is the creation of a libintl.h -> intl/libgettext.h that should be removed upon reconfiguration, but isn't. See this question asked on freeciv-dev and the answer given there. The same error message may arise if you have no gettext on your system and forget to use --with-included-gettext. How do I compile Freeciv under Solaris? Solaris (2.5 and up) has its own version of X in /usr/openwin, its own version of make in /usr/ccs/bin/make, and its own compiler (to be purchased separately) which, if you have it, is available in /opt/SUNWspro/bin. Solaris does not provide the XPM library, which is required for the Xaw client; it doesn't provide any of the stuff required for imlib, gdk and gtk, either, which is required to build the GTK+ client. (This stuff can be compiled however, and is now more readily installable with the Ximian GNOME distribution.) To confuse matters further, many local systems administrators add MIT X (usually, in /usr/X11), GNU make, and the gcc compiler. If you're unlucky, the ./configure && make procedure will get confused about these different versions of tools. However, with some patience, everything can be compiled without problems. Details are provided in the Freeciv INSTALL document. How do I compile Freeciv under Solaris or FreeBSD? On Solaris, FreeBSD, and some other systems, the default make isn't GNU make. In order to compile you must either * ./configure --disable-cvs-deps --disable-nls in order to disable the GNU make specific parts of the Makefile, or * use GNU make I hate isometric view! How do I play with Civ I style graphics? Start the client as civclient --tiles trident. What other GUI options do I have for the Freeciv client? The look and feel of your GUI is mainly determined by the Freeciv client you use. The original client is based on the Athena widget set ('Xaw'), which is fast and very widely available, but many users find it old-fashioned. The client can also be compiled to use Xaw3d. New features are sometimes implemented in the GTK+ 2 version only, but the Xaw one still has a speed advantage. Both xaw and gtk clients compile and run on any Unix variant we are aware of, not just the ones for which our download section provides native installation support. For Amiga and MS Windows, clients exist that use the native windowing system rather than X11. They are both in under active maintenance and in the main CVS tree. Some details of the GUI can be configured from the running client. A larger impact is made by the tileset used to display terrain, cities, units, etcetera. A tileset can be specified when the client is started up. Other tilesets in both categories are separately available from our download page. We do not distribute Civ I or II tiles for obvious copyright reasons. How do I enable/disable sound support? The client can be started without sound by supplying the commandline arguments: -P none. Further instructions are in doc/README.sound in the source tarball. Can I build up the palace or throne room as in the commercial Civs? No. This feature is not present in Freeciv, and probably will not ever. Can I change settings or rules to get different types of games? On the server command line, before the game is started, you can change various game settings: for example, the way in which the world map is generated, the number and strength of AI players, the cost of stealing or exchanging technology. When you join someone else's game, don't forget to check the settings. World maps can be created using the CivWorld map editor (available separately). It is also possible to edit savefiles from running games; the editor will no longer turn them into empty maps. You can create 'modpacks': alternative sets of units, buildings, and technologies. They are defined in the data/*/*.ruleset files. The 'default' is very close to Civ II; the 'civ2' modpack adds some more Civ II features that are generally regarded as annoying. The 'civ1' modpack makes the game much like Civ I. The modpack mechanism is still being enhanced from version to version. Finally, upgrade! Freeciv continues to improve from version to version: a rule may change when the mailing list agrees it is 'wrong'. See, for instance, the NEWS- file. How compatible is Freeciv with Civ I, Civ II or Civ 3? Civ II compatibility is a stated goal; this means that the 'civ2' modpack should give the very close to Civ II rules and gameplay features, while the 'default' modpack tries to reflect the most popular choices for Freeciv. See also * in Jan, 1999 * in Jun, 1999 * in Apr, 2000 Few Civ III features are implemented, and nobody is actively striving for compatibility. See Mike Jing's list of differences and two discussion threads in July, 2002]. How do I attack another player? From version 1.11.4 and up, you are initially at peace with everyone - except AI players, which do not know how to use diplomacy. Therefore, you cannot attack any enemy units or cities unless you explicitly cancel the peace treaty with this enemy: use F3, select the player, and Cancel Pact. My opponents seem to be able to play two moves at once! Freeciv's multiplayer facilities are asynchronous: during a turn, moves from connected clients are processed in the order they are received. Server managed movement is executed in between turns. It allows human players to surprise their opponents by clever use of goto or quick fingers. Why are the AI players so damn good on 'easy'? You are not expanding fast enough. See a discussion on freeciv-dev. Also, for version later than 1.14.1, try the 'novice' difficulty level. What distinguishes AI players from humans? What do the skill levels mean? AI players in Freeciv operate in the server, partly before after all clients move, partly afterwards. Unlike the clients, they can observe the full state of the game, including everything about other players. Hard AI players can set their research, tax or luxury to 100% regardless of their governments. Other than this, the AI players are not known to cheat. Further, the easy AI are less eager to build cities, and at easy and normal, the AI 'forget' where huts are and which unknown techs exist. I want more action. In Freeciv, expansion is everything, even more so than in Civ I or II. Some players find it very tedious to build on an empire for hours and hours without even meeting an enemy. See some techniques to speed up the game. The basic idea is to reduce the time and space allowed for expansion as much as possible. One idea for multiplayer mode is to add AI players: they reduce the space per player further, and you can toy around with them early on without other humans being aware of it. This only works after you can beat the AI, of course. Another idea is to create starting situations in which the players are already fully developed. There is no automated support for this yet, but you can create populated maps with Civworld. How do I change the font? For the GTK+ 1.2 client, you can specify fonts in $HOME/freeciv.rc, which can be copied from the freeciv.rc that comes with Freeciv and edited with a text editor. Use regular X font names such as displayed by a tool like xfontsel. For example, style "help_text" { font = "-*-courier-medium-r-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*" } For the GTK+ 2.0 client, you can specify fonts in $HOME/.freeciv.rc-2.0, which can be copied from the freeciv.rc-2.0 that comes with Freeciv and edited with a text editor. Use Pango font names such as displayed by a tool like then Gnome Font Preferences. For example, style "help_text" { font_name = "Monospace 9" } For the Xaw client, you can change the font with X resources. You can specify them on the command line with the -xrm command-line option, or put them in your .Xdefaults file or the Freeciv app-defaults file. To change the main font, try something like: civclient -xrm "Freeciv*font: 8x16" If the font isn't fixed width, some on the dialogs won't look right, but they'll still work. I am having problems with accented characters. What gives? Short answer The problem is that your civserver and civclient are speaking different languages, albeith with some common vocabulary. You need to get them to speak the same language. Long answer A computer only understands and processes numbers. Hence everything must be converted at a point to a digital, i.e. numeric, format. Text string characters must be converted, i.e. encoded, to numbers as well. Traditionally the ASCII encoding was used on computers to store English text. As computer usage spread to other, non-English speaking, countries a problem showed up. ASCII did not contemplate characters not in the English language. Hence several mutually incompatible encodings, often with ASCII as a common subset, were devised, ISO-8859-1 for West European Languages, EUC-JP for Japanese, KOI-8R for Russian, etc. Then people from different countries wanted to speak with each other. The Internet made the problem even worse. Hence a new Universal encoding, called Unicode, was devised to replace all the old mutually incompatible encodings. UTF-8 is one way of encoding text in Unicode. Many Linux distributions have been transitioning to the Universal UTF-8 encoding by default. Unfortunately many utilities, libraries and programs get broken by this and do not work properly on UTF-8 locales. Freeciv's civserver and civclient were some of these broken programs. The problem usually manifests itself by seeing strange characters instead of accented or other non ASCII characters. e.g. MÃ¡ria TerÃ©zia instead of Mária Terézia. This usually happens when an ISO-8859-1 program is trying to display UTF-8 encoded text. Alternatively you may see no text at all. This usually happens when an UTF-8 program is trying to display ISO-8859-1 encoded text. Solution To run old, pre 1.14.1, broken versions of civserver and civclient in a sane way in Linux do: export LANG=en_US.ISO-8859-1 Prior to execution. Adjust the part before the '.' to match your locale language, if it is not US English. Freeciv 1.14.1 features a civserver which runs properly on UTF-8 locales. This civserver transmits and stores strings in UTF-8 as it should be. The GTK+ 2.0 civclient works with civservers running on UTF-8 locales. Other clients do not yet support UTF-8 civservers. To connect a GTK+ 2.0 civclient to a civserver in a different locale character set encoding than the one you are: export FREECIV_NETWORK_ENCODING=ISO-8859-1 Prior to execution. Substitute ISO-8859-1 for the civserver's character set encoding. To know your current locale's character set encoding run: locale charmap How do I get the latest development code? A snapshot of the development code is made every day; simply retrieve the latest version with your browser. This is development code; it may contain new features, bugs, and incompatibilities with older versions. An alternative is to use CVS directly: Obtain and install CVS on your Unix machine. On modern distributions it is already there; look for the cvs command. You can get CVS from Cyclic Software. Set your CVSROOT environment variable: * using /bin/sh: :: CVSROOT=:pserver:freecvs@www.freeciv.org:/home/freeciv/CVS; :: export CVSROOT * using ksh or bash: :: export CVSROOT=:pserver:freecvs@www.freeciv.org:/home/freeciv/CVS * using csh or tcsh: :: setenv CVSROOT :pserver:freecvs@www.freeciv.org:/home/freeciv/CVS Tell the CVS server who you are: :: cvs login (password: freecvs) Grab the source: :: cvs co freeciv Once you're retrieved the source, to update it, cd into the freeciv directory and issue cvs update. Another useful cvs command is: cvs diff -u This shows the changes between the version you have on disk and the current development code. See also How to Contribute to Freeciv development. If you'd like to know more about CVS, try here. Does Freeciv violate any rights of the makers of Civilization I or II? There have been debates on this and the honest answer seems to be: we don't know. Freeciv doesn't contain any actual material from Civ I or II, so it doesn't infringe on copyright. The name is probably not a trademark infringement. The user interface is similar, but with many (deliberate) differences. The game itself can be configured to be practically identical to Civ I and Civ II. If the rules of a game are patentable, and those of Civ I or II are patented, then Freeciv may infringe on that patent. Incidentally, there are good reasons to assume that Freeciv doesn't harm the sales of any of the commercial Civilization games in any way. How do I wake up in the morning? We're open to suggestions on this one. Where can I ask questions or send improvements? Please send questions about the game, its installation, this FAQ, or the rest of this site to the freeciv@freeciv.org mailinglist. For discussion of modpacks, rulesets, tilesets, and nations, please use freeciv-data@freeciv.org; to discuss the Freeciv code, use freeciv-dev@freeciv.org, or for AI issues, freeciv-ai@freeciv.org. The Mailinglists are archived at http://arch.freeciv.org. Patches and bug reports are best reported to the Freeciv bug tracking system through the WWW form at RT. Copies of submissions are automatically sent to freeciv-dev@freeciv.org , with a ID in the subject; replies to bugs@freeciv.org that preserve the bug ID will be threaded properly in the bug tracking system, so this method is preferable to using freeciv-dev@freeciv.org directly. Windows: Retrieving the Native Windows Freeciv The Native Windows packages now come as self-extracting files. (A .ZIP is still available if you desire it, see the Download page for more information.) The steps to take to download, unpack, and run the native Windows Freeciv are: * Download one of the .EXE files. There are two different .EXE files available, one with sound support and one without. The file with sound support is available here (5,415,774 bytes). Save it in a directory and remember where that is (for example, C:\WINDOWS\TEMP) The file without sound support is available here (4,196,090 bytes). Save it in a directory and remember where that is (for example, C:\WINDOWS\TEMP) * Extract the file by running it (double click it from Windows Explorer, for example.) * Read and accept the GPL (if you accept it and want to install Freeciv.) * Indicate what directory it should be installed in. Please note that if you've previously installed a Freeciv self-installation package that it will default to that directory. Otherwise it will default to %SYSTEMROOT%\Program Files\Freeciv-1.14.0 (for example, C:\Program Files\Freeciv-1.14.0.) * Indicate what program group it should use. As with the directory, if you've installed a Freeciv self-installation package previously it will default to that, otherwise it will default to Freeciv. That's it! You've downloaded and installed Freeciv for Windows! Windows: OK, I've downloaded and installed it, how do I run it? If you used one of the self installer versions then there's a program group with the name chosen at installation time (for example, Freeciv-1.14.0.) Just go to click on Start->Programs->Freeciv-1.14.0->Freeciv That's it! You should be up and running. Windows: I didn't use the self-installer, how do I run it? If you installed the .ZIP then just use Windows Explorer and change to the directory you unzipped into (C:\FREECIV-1.14.0 in my case). Windows Explorer is usually located in Start->Programs->Accessories. Then double click on civclient.exe. Windows: I've started civclient, but don't know what to do next? The following steps should get you started: # The Freeciv client will pop up and after a second the Start a game dialog box will pop up on top. # If you want to play against other humans (I think they're human anyway :-) then click on the Join Game button in the Start a game dialog box that popped up. Then either type in the IP address of the server or select the Metaserver tab to play on the freeciv.org server. Then select an available game and click the Connect button. (You may need to click the Update button to get the list of servers initially and to update it after a while.) # If you want to play on your local machine against the AI (all other players are AI controlled) then click on the New Game button. # Then select your difficulty level and the Total players (it includes yourself, so if you wanted to play against four AI players, you'd select 5). You can change the name here as well. # A popup from the client window will allow you to choose your nation, leader name, sex, and city style. That's it! Enjoy! Windows native client: How do I save and restart a saved game? You save the game by clicking the Save Game button at the bottom right of the client window. To load the saved game, click the Load Game button in step three or four above. (The name you saved under will have a .gz added to the end of it when you look in the file list.) Windows: How do I use a different tileset? The first thing to do is to download the tileset you want to use from download#tilesets. Ensure that you download the *-png.tar.gz version (you'll have to go to the dir link for the tileset you're intersted in to locate the *-png.tar.gz file.) Then you have to unpack the tileset into the DATA directory in your Freeciv directory (so if your Freeciv directory is C:\FREECIV-1.14.0, then you'd tell WinZip to extract to C:\FREECIV-1.14.0\DATA.) Make sure you tell your extraction program to extract into the subdirectories in the file. Once that's done you can start using the new tileset (FINALLY!) You have to pass an argument to CIVCLIENT.EXE so the easiest way to do that is to open a Command Prompt (from Start->Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt in my case, sometimes called an MS-DOS Window). Change to the Freeciv directory (for example, CD \FREECIV-1.14.0) and start the client with the -tiles tilesetname option. For example, CIVCLIENT -tiles ft. You should be good to go then! Windows: How come there's a *-png.tar.gz and *.tar.gz for each tileset? The graphic format used by Freeciv on UNIX systems (.xpm) differs from that used on Windows systems (.png.) The *.tar.gz tileset files contain the .xpm files and the *-png.tar.gz tileset files contain the .png files. If you're running the Windows client use the *-png.tar.gz file. Some of the tilesets have both .png and .xpm files in the same tileset too. Freeciv will be moving towards using just .png's in future releases. Windows: Yeah, but I want to use a tileset that isn't on www.freeciv.org (or that doesn't have a *-png.tar.gz file available?) First of all, if there's a tileset on www.freeciv.org and there's not a tilesetname-png.tar.gz please bring it to the attention of the webmasters (and the .png and .xpm files aren't both in the same tar file.) Next, you'll have to convert all the .xpm files in the tileset directory you installed to .png files. If you don't already have a utility to do this, I have used and can recommend ImageMagick which can be downloaded from http://www.imagemagick.org. Once ImageMagick is downloaded and installed, go to the tileset directory (C:\FREECIV-1.14.0\DATA\FT for example if you installed the ft tileset here.) Next, you have to run the CONVERT.EXE program from where you installed ImageMagick (in my case it's in C:\PROGRA~1\ImageMagick-5.4.8-Q16) to convert each .xpm to a .png. For example, I ran the following commands: C:\PROGRA~1\ImageMagick-5.4.8-Q16\CONVERT chiefs.xpm chiefs.png C:\PROGRA~1\ImageMagick-5.4.8-Q16\CONVERT cities.xpm cities.png (and so on for the rest of the files with .xpm extensions.) Windows: How do I use a different ruleset? A different ruleset can be used by downloading the ruleset and extracting it in the Freeciv data directory (C:\FREECIV-1.14.0\DATA, for example). This should create a subdirectory with the ruleset name (ancients, for example.) Currently (due to an issue in the Freeciv code), you need to create a regular file in the SHARE directory (C:\FREECIV-1.14.0\SHARE for example) with the same name as the ruleset directory (ancients, for example.) You can create this with NOTEPAD.EXE (or any other editor, or even COPY CON: ANCIENTS followed by a ^Z.) The contents of the file doesn't matter. Then you need to tell the server to use it. This is done by typing /rulesetdir ruleset directory in the chat line of the client before pressing the Start Game button. Windows: How can I convert tilesets on a LINUX machine for use on a Windows machine? Andreas Kemnade () posted the following method that he uses to do this on a LINUX system: for name in *.xpm ; do convert $name $(echo $name | sed 's|xpm$|png|') ; done ; and then I tried file *.png and looked for files which do not show up as RGBA. I have opened the ones, which are not converted correctly, with gimp and saved them as pngs. Then again file *.png. And finally for name in *.png ; do mv $name $name.bak ; pngquant 256 <$name.bak >$name ; done And a final look at them (with freeciv). Cleanup: rm *.xpm rm *.bak Then I have created the tarball.